


Blackfire

by thegildedbat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/M, Humor, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-01-30 15:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12656508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegildedbat/pseuds/thegildedbat
Summary: HYDRA has a lot of pet projects. She's just the newest one.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is my baby. I started it a long time ago when I rewatched Civil War and fell in love with James Buchanan Barnes. Seriously, I used to work at a call center and would write bits of this between calls in a composition notebook. I've written ahead and the track of the story is mapped out in my head but honestly, frequency of updates depends on the initial feedback.
> 
> This story begins before the events of Civil War.
> 
> I'd like to think it's a spin on the usual Bucky/OC fics. (:

_One and a half years ago._

Leni woke with a start, her whole body jerking as her muscles and nerves came back to life. The first thing she noticed was that she was not in her own bed. Her lush bedding and mountains of pillows, the softness purposefully created to ease her sore muscles, was replaced by a thin mattress that felt like it was stuffed with plastic and cardboard. The second thing to register in her mind was the pain. And then that’s all that registered… it consumed her.

She felt like she was aflame. Her skin burned and stung and the blood in her veins was molten. She jerked her body, writhing in the bed, and the movement brought to her attention that her arms and legs were strapped to metal bars on either side of her. She was in a hospital issue bed. Why?

She screamed then, the pain and confusion hitting her all at once. The last thing she could recall was falling asleep in her bed in the apartment she and her father lived in. Now it was obvious to her that she was in the base.

She had never seen this part of the base before. Looking around frantically, the high white walls and rows of clear cabinets filled with chemicals and medical supplies, she deduced they were holding her in one of the many labs scattered throughout the complex. It was not a place she was granted access to before, so why was she here now?

Another throat scratching scream burst from her lips as a new wave of anguish rolled through her body. She had experienced many injuries throughout her many years of training. Broken bones, sprains, contusions, concussions… if it could be named, Leni had probably dealt with it at some point. But this was nothing like Leni had experienced before. She would gladly have traded her previously broken bones for this agony.

She must have kept screaming because eventually an orderly appeared at her bedside, complete with stethoscope and a worried frown.

“ _Wo ist mein Vater? _” she grunted through clenched teeth.__

__“He is indisposed,” the orderly replied in Leni’s native language, German. His tone was flat as he removed the stethoscope from around his neck and inserted the buds in to his ears._ _

__“What has been done to me?”_ _

__The orderly gave her a look. “That’s above my clearance,” he said as he placed the stethoscope against her chest, over her heart. The cold metal stung her burning skin and she let out a hiss._ _

__“Stop it,” she said, tugging against the bonds on her wrists._ _

__“I have to get your vitals after the procedure. Please do not resist.”_ _

__“What procedure? Where is my father?” she yelled, jerking harder against the bonds._ _

__“If you continue to resist I will call for assistance to have you further restrained,” the orderly spoke softly, still moving the scope around her chest._ _

__“I’d like to see them try,” she growled as the strap holding her left wrist gave way with snap. Leni grabbed the scope, wrenched it from the nurse’s ears, and whipped the metal end against his temple. He lost consciousness and fell to the ground with a thump._ _

__The pain was still radiating through her body but anger and confusion had given her enough adrenaline to move. She thought on what her training taught her and grit her teeth, attempting to focus through the pain. In moments she was able to undo the other arm with her free hand, then the leg restraints, and slowly climbed to her feet from the bed. When her bare feet met the cold stone it stung her skin just like the stethoscope. She let out another hiss of pain but still managed to make it to the door._ _

__Miraculously her pin for the keypad still worked. She made it into the hall and worked her way down the corridor, supporting herself against the wall. She had never felt so weak in her life, but there was no way she would stop to rest until she found her father… and some answers._ _

__The halls were unusually quiet, almost void of agents and the other gainfully employed of HYDRA. Those she did see, Leni easily avoided, even in her current state. She wasn’t on the top of her game, and even though she was an agent in training herself and her father ranked higher than most, she still didn’t like being so exposed._ _

__Leni reached a stairwell down to the lower levels of the compound. The fluorescent lights that lighted a path down flickered and she heard voices faintly emanating from below._ _

__Well, guess she was going down._ _

__The descent was long and painful. Every step and bend of her legs sent shoots of lightening, white hot in intensity up her body. But she was able to stay quiet, through focus and biting her lip hard enough to draw blood multiple times. She must have been a sight, hobbling around like someone’s grandmother in a hospital gown with a mouthful of blood to boot._ _

__She thanked whatever powers that be when she reached the landing and saw the agent guarding the door the voices leaked from was a familiar face._ _

__“Serg,” she gasped as she stumbled over to him. The man’s hand instantly shot to his side arm, but he stilled his hand when he recognized her._ _

__As she made it to him she grasped his arm for support. “Where is my father?” she wheezed._ _

__“Christ, girl. What happened?” Serg asked in his slang-ridden eastern Russian dialect, which Leni could barely follow._ _

__“It’s probably above your pay grade. Just tell me where he is,” she replied._ _

__“You know I can’t do that, Leni,” he sighed._ _

__Leni peered around his shoulder. “He couldn’t possibly be in there, could he?” she asked innocuously, pointing to the blast proof door behind him._ _

__“No, Leni, you don’t—,” but Serg didn’t finish before Leni pulled the stun gun from behind her back, ignited it, and shoved the spark into his side. He slumped against the wall and slid to the ground._ _

__Leni frowned down at his prone figure. “Sorry, bud. Had to,” she murmured as she replaced the taser where she had pilfered it from his belt. Using Serg for support had only been half a necessity, turned out._ _

__This time, she highly doubted her pin would gain her access to whatever lay on the other side of the door. She attempted her father’s latest code and was half shocked when the door whooshed open. Apparently, he hadn’t yet caught on that she had memorized his access code._ _

__She limped in, expecting to find Jakob Mueller tinkering with chemicals or scribbling away his latest findings in his moleskin journal. Instead she found herself under the scrutinizing eyes of over half of HYDRA’s upper echelon, agents and lab techs who numbered into the thirties… and the Asset._ _

__Leni gulped and rubbed the sleeve of her gown across her mouth, the hem came back red. Her gut churned and though she knew in the back of her mind her father was likely enraged at her intrusion and there would be hell to pay for it later, she couldn’t take her eyes off the man with the silver arm. He was strapped to a chair and surrounded by suits gazing clinically at him like he was a strange animal._ _

__She’d seen the Soldier before. Her whole life had been spent among HYDRA, after all… but she hadn’t seen him in years. Could hardly recall the last time she had seen him. And his was an impressive presence. He lifted his head and looked right at her, his empty gaze boring into her. Her breath caught in her throat. Levi’s gaze hung there even as her father stomped toward her and roughly jerked her towards him, his words coming out in a hiss._ _

__“What the hell do you think you are doing?! You should be restrained and sedated.”_ _

__“What did you do to me?” she whispered, eyes still locked on the Soldier. The cyrotank behind him still weeped steam into the air._ _

__“You are to be part of an innovation and will know in due time. Now you should be resting and away.”_ _

__“What is this, Doctor Mueller?” a voice, American, cut in behind him._ _

__Her father spun on his heel and fixed a pinched smile on his face. “Nothing to concern, Herr Pierce, I assure you. This is my daughter and the first trial of Project Blackfire. The future of HYDRA’s warriors.”_ _

__“Is that so?” Pierce said with a sickly smile. “Well, then… we have the Asset right here, why not a demonstration?”_ _

__Leni’s eyes widened. He couldn’t mean—no, there was no way she could face the Soldier. Even on her best day he would snap her in half… and now? Pierce might as well take a .22 in hand himself and put a bullet in her skull. Evidently her father thought the same thing, he balked beside her._ _

__“Herr Pierce, she is not ready. She has just finished the procedure. She knows not what abilities she possesses, much less how to utilize them.”_ _

__“Nonsense, Mueller. She was able to bypass the whole base and get down here without obstruction. And that’s post-op!” Pierce waved a hand and another white-coated scientist stepped toward the Soldier, murmuring words as he undid the restraints._ _

__“Homecoming.”_ _

__Leni could hear the scientist’s murmuring now, a softly spoken Russian, as the rest of the room had fallen deathly quiet. A room full of diplomats, scientists, soldiers… the strongest men in the world, and no one dared step between the Solider and his target._ _

__“One.”_ _

__“Okay!” Leni burst out. “I get the point, I’ll leave. I will go back to the lab. Sedate me, secure me. Whatever, it’s fine, just—,”_ _

__“Freight car.”_ _

__“Fuck!” Leni shot a desperate look to her father, who was already backing away from her._ _

__“Just let go, it’ll come. It reacts when the body is in danger,” he hold her._ _

__“What reacts?” Leni yelled, desperation and fear making her voice crack._ _

__“Ready to comply.” She heard a deep voice, harsh with disuse, bleed through the quiet of the room._ _

__Leni turned her gaze back to the Asset. He was free of restraints now and standing facing Pierce, awaiting orders._ _

__Pierce turned to Leni. “Asses the target. Demobilize.”_ _

__“Herr Pierce, stop this!” she heard her father yelled from across the room._ _

__In a second he was stalking towards her. Both hands, the flesh and the metal, were curled into fists. Blood flooded in her ears and suddenly everything felt far way except for the assassin quickly gaining ground on her. She heard Serg’s words from the training room echo in the back of her mind._ _

___You’re small, kid. And slight. You gotta stay low and move quick if you’re gonna stand a target who’s got any weight on you._ _ _

__Without any more time for thinking, Leni lunged toward the nearest agent and seized the small chrome baton cinched at her hip. She jumped back and Leni ducked into a roll, narrowly avoiding the metal fist that plowed through the air where her head had been seconds before._ _

__A cry of pain erupted from her as her muscles flamed up again, the after affects of sudden movement taking the place of fear._ _

__“She’s not ready, no where near ready,” she barely heard her father groan as she rolled again, this time narrowly missing a steel toe boot to the ribs._ _

__She was a second too late. Cold metal fingers seared her flesh as the Soldier gripped her ankle in a vice that made her ankle crack. He jerked her back and then he was on top of her, hands around her throat._ _

__Leni gagged as the pressure increased and her body became quickly deprived of air. She flung her arm to the side and grabbed desperately for the baton, getting it in her fingers and swinging it up with a crack against his face. If anything, it just made him angry. Rage flashed across the empty eyes as his grip tightened even more._ _

__She gasped and her vision clouded, spots and stars overlapping the sight of the face above her, wrenching the life out of her. Her already burning skin grew hotter and hotter and the skin puckered and sizzled under the metal hand’s grip._ _

__“She’s reacting, it’s taking affect in her blood! Call him off or we’re all going to die, I promise you!” she heard her father screaming from miles away._ _

__Her head jerked back and her vision went black. Her senses heightened and suddenly she felt everything. She could smell the chemical staleness on the Soldier’s skin, hear the wind blowing outside of the compound, taste the iron of the blood still lingering her mouth. Black miasma seeped out of her pores and the Soldier hissed as it came in contact with his skin and singed his hair._ _

__“Target assessed! Mission complete!”_ _

__Someone yelled, everyone was scrambling, the grip on her neck lessened, and everything went black._ _


	2. Chapter 2

Dark matter. There’s many theories about it. At it’s core it is matter that does not absorb, transmute, or reflect light. In some schools it is thought to be the substance holding the universe together, keeping galaxies spinning only enough so they don’t tear themselves apart. Dark matter is housed in the hearts of stars. There are groups, not known to the world across but in small clusters, that believe if dark matter can harnessed it can be greater and stronger than any other weapon known to man. For “hot” dark matter is flame before flame becomes flame. If gas fire ignites quickly than a reaction of dark matter can consume and destroy worlds faster than the blink of an eye.

However, it could never be harnessed… that’s what many believed. Many except HYDRA. Many except dual specialist of microbiology and quantum physics, Herr Doctor Jakob Mueller.

———

Leni worried at the puckered skin at the side of her neck as she sipped her coffee. She sat in the window seat of her father’s apartment in the city center of Sevastopol watching mothers usher their children to the bus stop through the foggy light of early morning.

“ _Papa! Es ist Zeit! Wir müssen zu gehen, oder?_ ” she yelled over her shoulder.

Jakob Mueller rounded the corner from the hall leading to his room and into the kitchen, ruffling his daughter’s hair as he passed.

“I fixed you a cup to go,” she said to him as she pulled her gaze from the window and walked into the kitchen to meet him.

“ _Danke, meine liebling_ ,” muttered her father through a mouthful of coffee. A small smile formed on his face as he savored the sip and swallowed. “We shall go now, yes?”

Leni threw her backpack over her shoulder as her father grabbed his briefcase. They took the rickety lift down to the lobby and walked outside just in time to meet the nondescript car pulling up to the side of the building. They both piled into the back seat and Leni gave one last look at the milling school children in the square as they drove away.

“So today is really the day. My first mission,” she said to her father with a smile. “It only took… what? Thirteen years of combat and espionage training, one invasive surgery, and a gnarly throat scar.”

Jakob Mueller leveled a look at his daughter. “It is no laughing matter, Leni. Today is the day you prove yourself to HYDRA and to me. It’s the start of your life.”

Leni swallowed her bitterness. The first 23 years of her life were leading up to this moment and she had no stronger desire then to throw the car door open, barrel out, and never stop running. But she couldn’t do that, so this was her silver lining. Her first mission meant the first time in her life she would be away from her father and HYDRA. Calling the shots and running the show of her own life. 

Leni let her mind wander as she gazed out the tinted window of the car, watching the forested outside of the city whiz by in a haze of green.

It had been about two years now since SHIELD had fallen and HYDRA had crashed along with it. Her father and she had been stationed in the Crimea for one of those years, Leni completing her training and acclimating to the procedure and her father monitoring her progress along with supervising his other endeavors. After her initial wake up and the incident with the Soldier, she had been put on bed rest for a month, partly to recover from the burns on her neck, but mostly for her body to acclimate to the trace dark matter injected in her blood stream and bonded to her DNA.

About two weeks in the chronic pain eased away and was replaced with a heightening of sense akin to what she felt while being choked. Once released from the lab, it was soon evident her physical prowess, stamina, and reflexes had been enhanced as well. Her father was ecstatic. Project Blackfire was his life’s work and he was walking on air the last two years—as much as any top scientist of a secret so-called terrorist organization could.

Leni couldn’t face what had been done to her, not really. She accepted the procedure had granted her with new abilities. It was a boon in the fact that it would set her on track to being one of HYDRA’s top agents, which was the path her life had been set on since before she could remember. 

Sometimes it still scared her. The dark matter she could manifest was pure energy and it looked like obsidian fire when she harnessed and released it. It burned, blasted, melted any surface it came in contact with. With focus, she could kill a human being in a matter of seconds. Probably a lot more than one. It was nice, she guessed, having access to that much raw power. Power that she could produce whenever she wanted. She worried, though, what that really meant for her life.

She also chose to ignore the fact that it was her father that did this to her. If she opened that door, she feared the anger at the deception would consume her. Jakob Mueller had turned his little girl into a weapon and Leni had to play the cards she was dealt.

Most nights she had nightmares. She’d lay her head down at night and soon enough she was back in the basement lab where it had all started. Some nights she would be in a cryochamber similar to the Soldier’s, only the steam and ice was replaced with blue and black fire. Men in sharply tailored suits watched, eyes emotionless as she burned alive. Other nights she was back on the ground with an iron grip crushing her windpipe. It was always Pierce she saw through spotty vision even though she knew the man was dead.

The thought always lingered in the back of her mind that the axe was about to drop. They would restrain her, freeze her, and use her as just another Asset. Another ghost of HYDRA.

———

Agent 14 met Leni and her father as they debarked from the elevator into the underground base.

“Herr Doktor, Agent 59,” she greeted them, voice pure professionalism. “The target has been spotted. You both are to report to debrief room B immediately, field agent 25 will meet you there. May I take your bags?” 

Jakob tapped a hand on his briefcase. “No need, agent. You may report back to your commanding officer.”

Agent 14 left with a nod of her head and the pair made their way to the debrief room. Agent 25, a short but thickly built Croatian with thinning hair and a stern face followed in behind them.

“Hail HYDRA,” he said as way of a greeting. Leni and Jakob responded in turn.

Agent 25 pulled a small remote from his pocket, turning on the overhead projector as the screen slowly lowered with a dull hum.

“The Asset was sighted in Tallinn at 0900 hours today. He is dressed in civilian clothes and presumed to be habituating in the city.”

The Croatian pressed a button on the remote and the Soldier’s face materialized on the screen. The picture was blurry, like someone who was just too far away had over-zoomed the lens, but it was definitely him. Dressed in a plain blue tee, brown jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap. He appeared to be wandering the daily market. Leni absentmindedly ran a finger over the scars on her neck.

“The Asset has been out of HYDRA’s possession for over 14 months. As of yet we have been unable to find a team that can subdue him and bring him in.”

“Agent 59,” he continued, “you will lead an assembled team of five into the city, subdue the target, and return him to base.” He laid a red leather bound notebook with a black star emblazoned in the center of the cover on the table before Leni and Jakob. 

“If the trigger words can be repeated in sequence within hearing of the Asset, he will comply to the speaker’s command without resistance.”

Leni raised a brow, looking to her father, then back to the operative. “That’s it? We say the words and he comes quietly… just like that?”

“As of yet no team has been able to get close enough to succeed,” Mueller informed irritably to Leni.

She snorted. “Seriously?” She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed and a smirk painted her face. “Then where’s my team? Let’s get going.”

———-

“Leni!” Serg called to her from down the hall. He trotted up to meet her, a smile on his lips. “First mission, kid! Hell yes!” he beamed and clapped her on the shoulder.

Leni smiled in spite of herself. Serg had not only been a mentor to her, but a friend for over five years. In truth, he was her only friend. Safe to say that HYDRA agents were not the friendliest group of people in the world and the added aspect of her being the daughter of HYDRA’s head of science and chemical devision caused most to avoid Leni like the plague. Serg’s praise of her skills or achievements always made her chest swell with pride. 

“It’s about time,” she said as they walked together to the armory. Leni was already suited up in general issue black fatigues and a spandex shirt of the same color, her holster strapped around her shoulders. “I was beginning to think Papa was only keeping me around for show.”

Serg chuckled. “And what a show you are. You’re ready, though. You’ll bring the bastard in and they’ll slap him on ice so fast his head will spin.”

Leni’s stomach tilted at the mention of the cryotank and she willed the memory of her dreams to the back of her mind. Serg was too busy inspecting side arms to notice the slight fall of her face.

“Here. Take this,” he said and pressed a rifle into her palm. Leni looked at the weapon and smiled softly. It was a Tokarev pistol, Serg’s signature. She checked the safety and ensured it had a full clip before sliding the gun into her holster.

“So what do you know about the Asset?” she asked offhandedly as she fiddled with a bowie knife, gently running the tip under her nail to loosen a bit of grime.

Serg turned his attention from a wall of semi-automatics back to Leni, looking thoughtful. “Not much, really. They only brought him out when shit really hit the fan or if someone important needed to get out of the picture. I’ve been in active duty, what? 1o years? They only thawed him out twice in that time. Once for that incident in Turkey when you were little and the next time was when you decided to go Rambo on me,” he said the last part with a smirk.

Leni winced, remembering when she had dropped Serg with a taser. Luckily, he hadn’t taken it personally. 

“I just want to be 100% sure of what I’m up against, is all,” she continued, replacing the knife and opting for a smaller model she slid into the holder at her thigh. 

“Leni, I’ve seen you melt through a concrete wall in two seconds flat. You can produce pure energy from your fingertips,” he said, shaking his hands in the air for emphasis. “You can take on a braindead antique. You’re the next generation, kid. Who knows? Maybe when you bring him back they’ll retire him for good. With you, what would they need him for?”

Leni let out a small laugh. “Serg, you talking about the number one assassin for the past 70 years. I doubt they’ll retire him.”

Leni slide a handful of small throwing daggers into a side pocket of her pants, finishing her collection. Two Tokarevs were tucked into either side of the holster under her arms and she had six knives of various sizes tucked in this pocket or that brace along her legs. Complete with stun gun and baton cinched at her belt, she was completely decked out.

“All I know is,” Serg continued as he slung a shoulder around Leni’s neck, “if they do catalogue him, I want that arm. I’m gonna hang it on my mantel,” he said as the two left the armory and turned in the direction of the hanger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations* 
> 
> "Papa. It's time. We need to go, don't we?"
> 
> "Thank you, my love."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> be easy on me, i'm my own beta ~

Leni baulked when she entered the hanger causing Serg, who was following closely behind her, to stumble into her. He steadied himself with his hands on her shoulders and stopped.

“What’s up?” he asked quietly.

Leni eyed the jet that would transfer her and her team to Estonia. It was small—built for speed more than anything—a solid black chrome with a side hatch made for parachuting out. Her team itself, made of five agents she had only seen a handful of times and knew nothing about except for their numbers, milled about the jet as well as her father and three other directors. Agent Novikov, acting head of espionage spoke softly with her father as financial director Thacker and head of artillery and munitions Director Valdez circled around the jet, pointing here and there at different parts of tech.

“Why are they here?” She groaned, looking back at Serg with exasperation in her eyes. “There’s not a goodbye party every time you go into the field!” 

“Yeah, well I’m not the first successful trial of Project Blackfire. And my father isn’t head of science and chemical.”

Leni rolled her eyes at him. “This is ridiculous. All they’re going to get to see is me climb into a plane and leave. Not like I’m going to power the damn thing myself,” she said, flipping a hand across the hanger.

Serg came from behind her and nudged her gently. “Come on, kid. The sooner you get past them, the sooner you can get to the action.”

She let out another groan but nevertheless followed the man across the hanger to the group milling about the jet. The members of her team came to attention when they caught sight of her and lined up, standing absolutely still to await orders. 

“At ease, go ahead and wait in the jet,” she said to them before turning to her father. “Papa, isn’t this a little excessive?” she muttered to him in German under her breath.

He didn’t turn his eyes to her but lent down, whispering in her ear. “They’re here to see you off. They all have a lot invested in you.” 

Director Novikov approached them, his gut jiggling under his expensive shirt as he raised his arms and shouted out a greeting. “Ah, privet Miss Mueller! I hear you’re going to bring our bulldog back?” he asked in thickly accented English.

Leni smiled and bobbed her head. “Affirmative, Director Novikov. My father cleared me for the field last week.”

“Ja,” her father cut in, “Agent 59 has responded greatly to the dark matter injections and has a full handle on her abilities. She’s read for the field,” he said, catching her arm in a paternal grip. “I am very proud of my daughter.”

“Da, she is a good girl. And has a bright future with HYDRA,” said Novikov. Directors Valdez and Thacker had come to join the group and Leni bit her lip to stifle another groan. Really, she was done with the bureaucratic mingling and was ready to leave.

“Directors Valdez, Thacker, my thanks in gaining your approval to become an active agent. I feel more ready then ever,” Leni said. Director Valdez was a small and slight Brazilian with the eyes of a hawk, a true opposite to the tall and sturdy blond that was Thacker.

Thacker looked her over with a stern eye. Whatever the large woman had in managing figures and numbers she lacked in social eloquence. “Going into hiding was a large financial blow to HYDRA. The sooner everything is back in order and accounted for, the quicker we can regroup.”

Valdez, who was by far the most tolerable of the three, gave Leni a warm smile. “Project Blackfire has truly been an innovation. I’ve seen you in action in the training room, 59, and I was impressed with what I saw. I have complete faith you will complete the directive. But now, I do believe, you should join your team and get going. The Asset could be on the move even as we speak. If you’ll excuse us.” He nodded to Leni and her father and ushered his parters away from the jet and to the exit of the hanger.

When the trio was out of earshot Jakob Mueller crouched so he was eye to eye to Leni. “I hope I do not have to stress on you the importance of this mission. Your life is riding on it’s success. The Asset will take you down just as easily as he almost did two years ago, and I won’t be there to call him off. My reputation rides on the success of this mission.” He grasped her arms and squeezed, the grip no longer the comforting one of a father but an uncomfortable pinch against her skin. Two years ago it would have left handprints bruised onto her arms. “If you fail, there will be hell to pay.” He let go and pulled a folded strip of paper from the pocket of his white coat. “Here’s the activation code. Memorize it then burn it. The flight only takes an hour.”

Leni took the paper in hand and nodded. “Yes, papa.” She didn’t look back as she boarded the plane and took a seat among her team. 

———

_Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight car._

The words were a mantra in Leni’s mind. She repeated them over and over, whispering quietly to herself with her eyes glued on the paper in her hands. Her Russian was basic at best, but she was confident in the pronunciation of her words. Her foot tapped a constant rhythm on the floor of the plane as they grew closer and closer to the drop point. 60 clicks away, they’d reach it in 15 minutes.

She got to her feet and took her time looking between the members of her squad. She made and effort to meet the gaze of each one and hold it for a moment. 

“I know you all think I’m a pain in your ass. Some of you have been in the field for longer than I’ve been alive,” she said to the group, focusing on keeping her voice steady and strong. “You know what I think of that? Tough shit.

“I’m stronger and faster than all of you and I am the leader of this mission. I want to make that clear here and now. The second one of you so much as thinks of breaking objective I will put a bullet in your head. Our mission is simple. We find the Asset, immobilize him, and bring him back to base. I think we can do that. Don’t you?”

They all stayed silent but nodded their heads in agreement.

“Good. I want to keep this as quiet as possible. Don’t go out of your way to avoid collateral damage but if you can avoid it, then do. We can’t go in there with guns blazing. The Asset will catch whiff of us and bolt before we even lay eyes on him.”

“And what if he does run?” asked Agent 32. Leni recognized this one. He was the oldest in the group, entering into his 50s. He had a kill list a mile long and his talents hadn’t grown rusty with age.

“Shoot, but not to kill. If they wanted him dead they would have said so and he’s not an easy target.”

“Five minutes from drop point,” the pilot yelled back from the cockpit. 

Leni let out a long breath. “Okay, everyone grab a chute. There’s a car waiting at the drop point that will take us into the city.”

The operatives rose from their seats and each pulled a backpack from a hook on the lefthand wall of the plane. When all were securely strapped into a parachute pack Leni whistled and the copilot left his seat at the cockpit and approached the side door. He unlatched the door and pulled back it with a grunt, dropping to his knees to hold the door firming in place.

The agents stepped off the edge of the plane one by one into the open air and disappeared, free falling in a staggered line to the ground below. Leni waited a count of five for the agent before her to reach a safe distant, let out another long breath, and stepped off the metal lip into the sky. For a millisecond everything was still as she hung in stasis and then she began falling. Her stomach flipped as air whistled past her ears. The ground was quickly gaining on her and she kept her eyes glued down, waiting for the exact moment to release her chute. A few moments and she pulled the string releasing the fabric of the parachute for it to balloon up over her. She bobbed slightly as the parachute caught the air and grabbed the two identical grips that would help her guide her way down to the group.

Leni bent her knees slightly to avoid the shock of impact and quickly unclipped herself from the parachute. She trotted over to the black van waiting for them and rapped twice on the hood. The van’s engine igniting as she slid the door closed. She opened her palm and looked down at the crumbled paper still in her grasp. Black flames whispered up from her skin and paper curled in on itself as it quickly turned to ash.

——-

Leni had been a lot of places in her life. Her father was always on the move from one base, meeting, or summit to another and more often then not she traveled with him, her nanny and tutor traveling with them until she outgrew one and then the next. She was born in Berlin but her mother died in child birth so they didn’t linger long. Jakob Mueller stayed put long enough for his daughter to be released from the hospital, dispose of his wife’s body, and hire a caregiver for the newborn he ended up with. There was no funeral and Leni’s father never spoke of her mother again. What Leni knew of her she learned from one of her father’s lab assistants. One day he had explained to her quickly and quietly of the one and only time her father ever took of work; Leni’s birth.

Because of the title they were never in one place long. In fact, Sevastopol was more of Leni’s home as anywhere else. When HYDRA had to go completely off the grid it was harder for it’s top officials to freely travel and most when into hiding. That meant Leni spent more time in their little Crimean apartment.

Estonia was not one of the places she had ever been to and as the van speed toward the largest city in the country, Leni saw why. It was obviously a place where the iron curtain never truly fell. Run down farm houses and skinny cows dotted the country side and behind pine forests framed the horizon.

“If I ever go on vacation, remind me to skip Estonia,” Leni said flatly, breaking the silence in the car.

Agent 67, a Pole, chuckled. “In Poland ve call it Russia’s junkyard.”

Leni turned to the brunette with a smirk. “Funny, that’s what we in Germany call Poland.”  
The woman’s face went bank for a moment and then a throaty laugh escaped from her mouth. “I didn’t know Germans could make jokes!”

Leni shrugged. “We don’t, much.”

The group fell quiet again as the van entered the outskirts of Tallinn. Warehouses and apartment buildings began jutting up, speckling the before unimpeded sky. Leni watched as two young boys with thick black hair ran down the sidewalk with kites in hand, laughing to one another as they went. 

As they were nearing the city center Leni knocked a hand against the back of the driver’s seat. “Keep eyes out for a back alley or side street. I don’t want us driving directly through town.”

Soon enough the driver found an alley that Leni approved of and they came to a stop behind a rusting warehouse. The team piled out of the car and stood around checking their gear. They all applied counterfeit Tallinn police badges to the sleeve of the left arm of their mossy green jackets, which successfully concealed the bulk of their weaponry. 

Leni turned to the group. “If you see him, you call me immediately. We’ll split up until then. Comm in if the objective is in sight.”

Leni’s team poured out of the alleyway one by one and melted into the crowd. She slipped earbuds into her ears and followed suit, her favorite playlist pumping a rhythm into her ears. The Animals were blasting a lonely tune as she mingled around the market. She approached a booth and laid down a few coins for a small bag of raspberries, popping them into her mouth as she mingled amount the citizens.

And then he was there. Loitering around a stand of fruit set up in front of a cathedral. Leni tilted to her head to the side and popped another raspberry in her mouth. It couldn’t be this easy, could it? It was like the fates had dropped him into her lap.

She pulled her ear buds out and tucked them into her pocket, along with the bag of berries and approached the booth, sidling up beside him. His attention was too focused on finding the ripest plums to pay any attention to the small woman beside him. He didn’t even seem to notice the police badge emblazoned on her arm.

Leni took advantage of his distraction and her innocuous presence. Slowly she extended a finger to the ground and called fourth a breath’s amount of matter, melting the cement around his feet. She was sure to stagnate the degree of melting so the Soldier didn’t even notice the stone forming to his boots.

When she was sure the concrete had melted enough to keep him in place without liquifying she stepped closer to him, close enough that even her murmurings would be in ear shot.

“Longing. Rusted,” she began in her highly accented Russian. She was close enough now that she could feel the muscles in his arm twitch. His shoulders tensed and his body turned away from her. He looked down at his feet, melted into the stone of the sidewalk.

 

“Don’t do this,” he murmured in a desperate tone. His voice made her insides quake but she carried on.

“Furnace. Daybreak…” He wrenched forward, trying to free his feet from the stone. A silver hand shot out towards her neck, but all Leni had to do was take a few steps back to be out of his reach. 

“Seventeen. Benign.” His eyes were getting more frantic as she continued. He began pulling at one leg and then the other, grunting with exertion, but it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to free himself without causing damage. The melted cement around his ankles had burned so hot and hardened into an almost gem-like gray. 

“Stop!” He finally screamed at her, drawing the attention of the people mingling around. Townsfolk eyed the pair warily but no one try to intervene. Leni’s voice was growing shakier as she continued, but continue she did.

“Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight car,” she said the rest of the trigger sequence in a rush, the words muddled like dirt at the tip of her tongue.

A moment’s breath and then, “Ready to comply,” he said in rumbling Russian. His eyes, which had a moment before been so alive with raw feeling, were now blank.


	4. Chapter 4

Leni swallowed and took a moment to look around the square. It was just after lunch and vendors who had left for a meal were meandering back to their huts. They walked in a small group, smoking cigarettes or finishing the last dregs of sodas. They smiled and joked with one another as they walked by. Leni thought about their lives. They probably had partners, children… maybe a dog or an old fat cat. They lived in small apartments near the square and did the same routine day in and day out, selling their wares to their neighbors in the center. Something in Leni clicked and she turned to the Solider who was completely still, a thousand yard stare in his eyes.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. She looked up at him. “I can’t do this. They’re going to hurt you. They’re going to do the same thing to me, eventually.”

His head tilted slightly to the side in confusion. The man wasn’t there anymore, only the Asset.

“We have to get out of here. And we have to take down my team together to do it.” She reached into her jacket, pulling out one of her pistols and slid it into his metal grip.

“Neutralize targets, all HYDRA agents. No civilian casualties. Follow me,” as she gave the directive Leni released another small burst of dark energy from her fingertips, remelting the hardened rock so the Soldier could free his feet. Then she turned, heading back toward the van in the alley, with the Winter Soldier on her heels. 

She brought her wrist to her mouth and spoke quietly into the commlink connected to her jacket’s sleeves. “All units report back to rendezvous point. Target has been acquired.”

Leni chanced a look behind her. The Soldier still followed, gun held in a tight grip against his thigh. “I sure hope you haven’t gone rusty or we’re screwed,” she whispered more to herself. She didn’t get a reply.

The Soldier and Leni were the last to rejoin the group. The Agents milled about the van, speaking in quiet tones. Agent 32 noticed them first and let out a low whistle.

“Well would you look at that, rookie caught him.”

Leni approached him briskly, raised her gun, and put a shot right between his eyes. He dropped and was dead before he hit the pavement.

Agent 67 let out a Polish curse as she reached for her holstered rifle but another shot ran out from behind Leni as the Soldier shot past her to get the agent through the chest. Blood bubbled up from her lips as she slumped over the back seat of the van. 

In a matter of seconds the rest of the agents were dead and bullet casings littered the back alley. Shattered glass crunched under Leni’s feet as she inspected the driver. The Soldier had shot through the passenger window and hadn’t missed his target. The man was slumped over the steering wheel, looking right at Leni with dead eyes.

“I’m going to cut the gas line and then ignite the van. Get all the bodies in the back,” she turned and said him. The Soldier gave a silent nod and got to work as Leni popped the hood of the van, eyes darting over the engine block until she found the right tube. She pulled a knife from her thigh and slashed it, then slammed the hood back down. Gasoline began leaking and the acrid smell filled her nostrils. 

When she rounded to the back of the car the Soldier had finished and was sliding the door closed again. 

“Take me to where you’re staying. Do you remember?” she asked him.

He nodded again. He’d been silent since Leni said the last word in the ignition sequence. 

“Good, we have to get the fuck out of here.”

When they reached the mouth of the alley Leni turned back raised her hand, a swirling mass of black flame pooled into her palm and she left it go. It careened through the air to the van and when it came in contact will the gas the van—and the bodies in it—ignited into a sudden burst of heat and flame.

Leni felt the warmth of the blast on the back of her neck all the way back to the Soldier’s hideout as the pair navigated quickly through side streets and back alleys.

——

Leni looked around the room and frowned. The place was a shithole. Hidden in the upper levels of an abandoned factory which looked and smelled like it used to produce paint, it’s original purpose was obviously an office. The desk had been pushed over and tilted up so it obstructed the view of the only window, which was foggy and clouded over with grim. A filing cabinet lay on it’s side and empty Coke bottles, food wrappers, and crumbled maps and papers littered the top of the makeshift table. In the righthand corner sat a backpack and a rumpled sleeping bag that had seen better days.

The Soldier stood to her right, as still and silent as ever, while Leni surveyed his disaster of a living situation. Seeing the evidence of how he was forced to live, being on the run from HYDRA, helped to cement that her mutiny of the mission was the right decision. But it also filled her with a cold fear. She selfishly thought of her bed in the Crimean apartment as she stared at the sleeping bag. She didn’t want to live like this.

Leni sighed and turned toward the Soldier. “First thing’s first. How do we bring you back?”

“Back?” the Soldier asked.

Leni grimaced as she tilted her head from side to side in an attempt to loosen the tension in her neck.

“Yeah. Back. If I’m fugitive now too I’m not going to be spending my time with a walking vegetable.”

The Soldier frowned. “A walking vegetable?” 

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Leni groaned and ran her hands up and down her thighs, willing herself to think of how she was going to bring back the man instead of HYDRA’s monster. Her left hand ran against her baton and a lightbulb when off. Ah, there it was.

She unstrapped the baton from her belt and grasped the metal rod with both hands before bringing her arms back and hitting it against the side of the Soldier’s head. His eyes went wide as the metal made contact with his cheek with a sharp slap. He staggered back and fell to his knees, bringing his hands to his face.

When he looked back up at Leni, his eyes were filled with fury. 

“Oh, shit!” Leni yelped as he lunged for her. The air was knocked out of her body as her back slammed against the grimy wooden floor. The man, who had at least 70 pounds on Leni’s slight frame and was for all intents and purposes pure muscle, straddled her. Metal fingers tightened around her neck.

“Who are you?” he yelled. Because of the close proximity Leni could feel the heat from his breath on her face.

She let out a cough as the fingers tightened but raised her arms up to either side of her head in surrender.

“Get off of me and I’ll tell you,” she wheezed out.

His grip lessened for a moment, but then distrust clouded his eyes and it tightened again.  
“I’m missing time, what did you do?”

Leni’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and she pulled gently at it. “If you kill me you won’t know. And I can—can’t help you,” she coughed.

For a moment Leni thought it was all for naught and he was going to kill her right then and there. She was afraid to harness any of her power, it would take a large blast to get him off and she wasn’t sure if they would survive it. Finally, he grimaced, and though he still kept her pinned beneath him, he removed the hand from her neck. 

Leni coughed and sputtered as the adequate amount of oxygen made it’s way back into her lungs. “My name is Leni Mueller,” she began quietly, rubbing the tender skin of her neck. The puckered skin of her scar scratched against her fingers.

“I’m an agent of HYDRA and I was commissioned a team to bring you back to base.”

“Where are they?” he asked.

Leni closed her eyes and let out a breathe. She was silent for a moment as she tried to find the right words.

“My job was to memorize your activation sequence and repeat it to you so you would comply as quickly and quietly as possible. That’s what I did… but then I couldn’t go through with it. So I changed the objective. We took out the rest of my team, I destroyed the evidence, and you brought us here.”

“You made me kill people,” he stated darkly.

Leni looked into his eyes and saw the pain in them, the conflict of what he had done. 

“Yes. I made you kill people. If I didn’t, we’d be on our way back to HYDRA right now. You know what they’d do to you. They’d wipe you and put you back on ice, maybe forever. We did what we had to do.”

“I didn’t have to do anything!” he yelled as he rolled off of her and got to his feet. He began pacing the length of the small office. Leni lifted herself and crossed her legs, watching him from her place on the floor.

“You did, _you_ would have done the same thing. Those agents have killed a lot of people during their careers. They’re not going to be missed.”

He stopped abruptly and looked at her. “Why? Why did you want to stop them?”

Leni lifted her right hand and splayed her fingers, harnessing a small amount of energy. Blackness swirled as she manipulated the tendrils to weave between her fingers.

“You’re not HYDRA’s only experiment,” she said quietly, eyes glued to the flames coming from her fingertips. “I had to get out before they started doing to me what they did to you.” She looked back up at him.

The Soldiers eyes were wide with surprise, his eyes still glued to her right hand even though she had already dissipated the flames.

“HYDRA did that to you?” he asked incredulously.

Leni nodded. “My father did this to me,” she said quietly.

“Your father?” he asked, a shade of disgust in his voice.

“Dr. Jakob Mueller, head of the science and chemical devision for HYDRA. He worked on you too, at some point.”

The Soldier began his pacing again. “So you are the daughter of one of the most powerful people in HYDRA.” He said it like he didn’t believe the words.

“Mhmm,” Leni hummed with a nod of her head. “I’d say we have about a 12 hour window before they figure out I botched the mission. I’ve got a bank account under a false name, last time I checked it had a couple thousand Euro in it. But we’ll gave to get to an ATM and drain it fast.”

“We?” he asked.

Leni looked at him. “Uh, yeah.”

“Why?”

Leni sighed. “You ask that question a lot.”

He frowned at her. “It’s a valid question. I’m still trying to figure out why you of all people want to help me. Especially if you are truly who you said you are.”

Leni sighed again and pulled herself to her feet, approaching him slowly so she could look into his eyes.

“It’s a lot of things, really,” she began. “It was the boys with the kite when we entered the city. The vendors coming back from lunch who have families and cats and lives. Seeing you picking out plums… monsters don’t eat plums. The change in your eyes when the words took effect. I have spent the last two years avoiding the truth of what was done to me. And I’ve spent longer than that, my whole _life_ , ignoring what I was a part of. But then I saw you and I realized you were a living, breathing person and HYDRA took your life away. I don’t want that to happen to me. Or to anyone else, ever again. But I can’t stop them on my own,” she said, breathing hard at the end of her spiel. Tears had pricked the corners of her eyes and her chest tightened. If he didn’t believe her now, then he never would.

He cocked his head to the side and looked her up and down, seeming to size her up. Finally he spoke.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“I know,” Leni murmured.

“And people are going to die,” he added.

“People already have died.”

The Soldier pulled the cap off his head and ran silver fingers through messy brown hair.

“Alright, okay. But you’ll have to follow my lead. I can’t be babysitting you.”

Leni quirked an eyebrow at him. “You realize I just killed three people and blew up a van, right? I know you’re the mythical Winter Soldier,” she had with a wave of her hand toward him, “but I’m not useless. I have thirteen years of combat training under my belt.”

He gave her a sour look. “Training’s a lot different than the real thing. And first rule, don’t call me that.”

Leni raised her eyebrows, a slight smirk forming on her lips. “There are rules now! I see…What shall I call you, then?” 

“My name is… James,” he said with confidence. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“James,” Leni said, trying the name out on her tongue. The name lilted a little at the end, spoken through her German accent. “James,” she said again with a nod of the head. “It’s nice to meet you, James.”


End file.
